AMA: Ask Me Anything

What It Means: Ask Me Anything is a series started on Reddit, where an authority on a subject fields open questions. It is now used more widely on the Internet, with any sort of public Q&A being termed an AMA. For example:

Bae: Babe / Before Anyone Else

What It Means: Urban Dictionary says Bae is a Danish word for poop. Unfortunately, the Internet thinks it’s a term of endearment: either an acronym for “before anyone else” or a shortening of “babe”. Soon enough, pop stars Pharrell and Miley Cyrus turned it into a song, “Come get it, bae.” Sorry Danes, this is what the word means, now and forever. The good news is that most of the Internet also treats it as a term of mockery in memes and captions for images, so you can feel free to use it to be sassy. If you’re interested, Esquire has a detailed piece on the rise of bae.

DAE: Does Anyone Else?

What It Means: DAE is generally a prefix for a question, where the person asking wants to know if they are not alone in whatever they are experiencing. It’s huge on Reddit, niche forums, and discussion groups, but is not used as regularly elsewhere on the Internet. For example:

Dafuq: (What) the f***?

What It Means: The first time you see “dafuq” on the Internet, you might think it’s a legitimate word. It’s not. Pronounce it, preferably while no kids are around. Dafuq is the Internet’s way of saying WTF because apparently, the Internet-made WTF was not convenient enough. Let not the logic of five characters being better than three characters bother you, weary Internet traveller. We have a long way to go still.

ELI5: Explain Like I’m 5

What It Means: When someone gives a complex explanation for an event and you need them to dumb it down for you, ask them to “explain it like I’m 5 years old”, or ELI5. Most often, it’s used to explain science or technology in layman’s terms. Big on Reddit and discussion forums, not so big on other forms. Here’s an example from Hacker News:

FTFY: Fixed That For You

What It Means: This particular phrase is used in two ways. The first is literal, where if you say something that has an obvious unintentional mistake, another person on the Internet corrects it for you, adding, “FTFY.” The other way is sarcastic. For example:

Facepalm: Short for “Ugh, idiot.”

What It Means: When someone does something stupid, instinctively, your palm hits your own face or forehead. That entire series of action is now reduced to a single word: facepalm. It can be used to convey dismay, disappointment, ridicule, or disapproval.

Headdesk: Supreme frustration

What It Means: Headdesk is the extreme facepalm. When someone says or does something monumentally idiotic, you hit your head on the desk to convey your utter loss of faith in humanity. As you flail for hope, take solace in the knowledge that at least you can express your feelings in one succinct word.

ICYMI: In Case You Missed It

What It Means: One of the few times the Internet tries to be polite, ICYMI is just a precaution when you aren’t sure if other people already know about something, or when you are repeating something you have said before. It’s a way of saying, “You might have already seen this, but if not, here you go.”

Lulz: Kicks (as in “For kicks”)

What It Means: Lulz is an off-shoot of LOLs*. Lulz is usually used in the form of “For the lulz”, which would be just like saying “for the kicks” or “for the laughs”. It’s a justification for whatever you’re doing or saying; the justification being that it’s for a few laughs.

*If you need to know what LOL is, then you need a much more basic “Internet for Dummies 101” guide than this article.

MFW: My Face When

MRW: My Reaction When

MIRL: Me In Real Life

What It Means: Like HIFW, these are mainly intended as reactions coupled with photos or GIFs. They are also often used to provide a funny caption to an image of a trending topic. Of course, in the case of MFW, the image has to have someone’s face.

NSFW: Not Safe For Work

What It Means: If you’re at the office, you don’t want to open a link that has nudity, graphic language, or anything offensive. If the link says “NSFW”, then it’s not safe to open in an environment where someone might see it and be offended.

NSFL: Not Safe For Life

What It Means: In Internet lingo, NSFW is now used more for something that would be offensive in a formal environment, but would be fine if you’re around friends. NSFL usually has images, videos or content so graphic that it could be scarring for your eyes, whether around others or not.

PAW: Parents Are Watching

What It Means: Literally that. If kids want to avoid saying or showing something while their parents are around, PAW is a warning to the recipient. In recent times, Code 9 has been also been used instead of PAW, although it hasn’t caught on that much yet. For example:

Her: You want to send me that Snapchat?

Him: paw later

QFT: Quoted For Truth

What It Means: There are two ways this is used. First, when someone says something you agree with so vehemently that you couldn’t have said it better yourself. Second, when someone says something and you want to hold them to it in the future, as proof. For example:

A: “I gotta say, Bieber is pretty good sometimes.”

B: “QFT, I’ll remind you about this when you aren’t drunk.”

SMH: Shaking My Head

What It Means: Like headdesk and facepalm, SMH is used to convey your disappointment at someone doing or saying something utterly stupid.

TL;DR: Too Long; Didn’t Read

What It Means: The Internet is a treasure trove of detailed information, but sometimes, you just want the basic nugget and not read the whole thing. TL;DR or TLDR was invented to give a quick summary of the content. For example:

YOLO: You Only Live Once

What It Means: YOLO is a justification for doing something that you probably shouldn’t be doing, but want to do it anyway. It’s also used ironically as commentary on someone else doing something idiotic.

Bonus! The Shruggie

What It Means: The humble shrug, expressed in the form of a few lines and strokes. Like this:

It can range in meaning: “whatever”, “why not”, “who knows”, “doesn’t matter”, “enh”, and almost anything else that’s a quick dismissal. The Awl’s piece on the “shruggie” or the “smugshrug” that’s worth a read if you’re more interested in this super-popular reaction emoticon.

walked 65 blocks home so i could get pizza without feeling guilty and then in the middle i got hungry and ate chipotle instead ¯_(?)_/¯

"Trendy" internet speak is nothing more than social media-spread valley girl talk. This throw-away culture has taken to altering large swathes of its language every 2-3 years. It makes you sound absolutely fucking stupid if not totally trashy. The internet has allowed language to become a part of the same throw-away garbage culture that pop music has become. In fact, it seems like everything the masses of internet users touch turns to pure throw away trash within a couple years. Since the blooming of the internet, trash culture has blasted off, celebrities have become exponentially more trashy, and social standards have gone down the toilet. It seems like people love to exercise their freedom... freedom to act like trashy assholes and really nothing more than that. Anti-war protests and groups are at all time lows, union busting is at an all time high, militarized police now patrol our streets, and total widespread surveillance has become common place even though crime and actual dangers to everyday life had already been at all-time lows before. Yet we don't give as hit. We love swimming in our mountainous landscapes of garbage / trash culture. The language has simply reflected the reality of our society. Garbage in, garbage out.

Couldn't agree with you more. Thank you for stating what is obvious to mature, intelligent people, yet oblivious to those who have grown up knowing nothing different. So sad to see an entire generation live with no appreciation for anything which takes more than 10 seconds to accomplish.

OMG words can me different things in different languages ???? Bae and Bæ are not the same thing. Plus the term Bae doesn't mean "before anyone else" it was just a shortened way of saying baby that has been used by black people since the early '90s

There's a very important one IMO, which is
INB4 = an expression commonly used on discussion forums and imageboards to forecast an anticipated response or a predictable outcome within a given thread.
Example: someone asks for help in a post full of spelling mistakes. You know there will be people more keen into pointing the mistakes (which are not what's being discussed) instead of actually answering the OP. So, before they do, you can post "inb4: grammar nazis", meaning "yeah, yeah, everyone noticed the mistakes, there's no need to play smart. now let's get to the real point of the discussion here."

Actually other than the obvious which is that its referring to Sherlock Holmes and his power of deduction (possibly a phrase Dr. Watson might have exclaimed), one might offer the following; You see there were these two brothers from the "Lott" family who owned a farm together. One day the older brother named Sherm noted that their garden was not performing well. He told his younger brother to go to the pasture to get some manure to spread in the garden. After several hours when his brother didn't return he sent a neighbor to search out his brother. The neighbor return to pass a message from the young brother. which was your brother says "No Sh*t", Mr. Shem Lott! Well through the years that phrase has been shortened to NSS = No Shit Sherlock. There you have it.

Quite a few of these have been in use for a long time; so not very "trendy". Although a few examples are pretty recent.

I never believed that PAW was used much IRL. Maybe back in the days of BBS and dial up modems, when just getting on line was a hassle and your only screen was a big monitor. How many parents have you seen hovering over a kid while they are texting?